Old EnglishOld English developed from a set of Anglo-Frisian or North Sea
Germanic dialects originally spoken by Germanic tribes traditionally
known as the
AnglesAngles ,
Saxons , and
JutesJutes . As the Anglo-
Saxons became
dominant in England, their language replaced the languages of Roman
Britain :
Common Brittonic , a Celtic language , and
LatinLatin , brought
to Britain by Roman invasion .
Old EnglishOld English had four main dialects,
associated with particular Anglo-Saxon kingdoms : Mercian ,
Northumbrian , Kentish and West Saxon . It was West Saxon that formed
the basis for the literary standard of the later
Old EnglishOld English period,
although the dominant forms of Middle and
Modern English would develop
mainly from Mercian. The speech of eastern and northern parts of
EnglandEngland was subject to strong
Old Norse influence due to Scandinavian
rule and settlement beginning in the 9th century.

_Englisc_, which the term _English_ is derived from , means
'pertaining to the Angles'. In Old English, this word was derived
from _Angles_ (the
Germanic tribe who conquered the island in the 5th
century). During the
9th century9th century , all invading Germanic tribes were
referred to as _Englisc_. It has been hypothesised that the Angles
acquired their name because their land on the coast of Jutland (now
mainland
DenmarkDenmark ) resembled a fishhook .
Proto-Germanic _*anguz_ also
had the meaning of 'narrow', referring to the shallow waters near the
coast. That word ultimately goes back to Proto-Indo-European
_*h₂enǵʰ-_, also meaning 'narrow'.

Another theory is that the derivation of 'narrow' is the more likely
connection to angling (as in fishing ), which itself stems from a PIE
root meaning _bend, angle_. The semantic link is the fishing hook,
which is curved or bent at an angle. In any case, the
AnglesAngles may have
been called such because they were a fishing people or were originally
descended from such, and therefore
EnglandEngland would mean 'land of the
fishermen ', and English would be 'the fishermen's language'.

Old EnglishOld English is a
West Germanic language , developing out of
Ingvaeonic (also known as North Sea Germanic) dialects from the 5th
century. It came to be spoken over most of the territory of the
Anglo-Saxon kingdoms which became the Kingdom of
EnglandEngland . This
included most of present-day England, as well as part of what is now
southeastern
ScotlandScotland , which for several centuries belonged to the
Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria . Other parts of the island –
WalesWales and most of
ScotlandScotland – continued to use
Celtic languages ,
except in the areas of Scandinavian settlements where
Old Norse was
spoken. Celtic speech also remained established in certain parts of
England: Medieval Cornish was spoken all over
CornwallCornwall and in adjacent
parts of
DevonDevon , while Cumbric survived perhaps to the 12th century in
parts of
CumbriaCumbria , and Welsh may have been spoken on the English side
of the Anglo-Welsh border . Norse was also widely spoken in the parts
of
EnglandEngland which fell under Danish law .

Anglo-Saxon literacy developed after Christianisation in the late 7th
century. The oldest surviving text of
Old English literature is
_Cædmon\'s Hymn _, composed between 658 and 680. There is a limited
corpus of runic inscriptions from the 5th to 7th centuries, but the
oldest coherent runic texts (notably the
Franks Casket ) date to the
8th century. The
Old English Latin alphabet was introduced around the
9th century.
Alfred the GreatAlfred the Great statue in
WinchesterWinchester ,
HampshireHampshire .
The 9th-century English King proposed that primary education be taught
in English, with those wishing to advance to holy orders to continue
their studies in Latin.

With the unification of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms (outside the Danelaw
) by
Alfred the GreatAlfred the Great in the later 9th century, the language of
government and literature became standardised around the West Saxon
dialect (Early West Saxon). Alfred advocated education in English
alongside Latin, and had many works translated into the English
language; some of them, such as
Pope Gregory I 's treatise _Pastoral
Care _, appear to have been translated by Alfred himself. In Old
English, typical of the development of literature, poetry arose before
prose, but King
Alfred the GreatAlfred the Great (871 to 901) chiefly inspired the
growth of prose.

A later literary standard, dating from the later 10th century, arose
under the influence of Bishop Æthelwold of
WinchesterWinchester , and was
followed by such writers as the prolific
Ælfric of EynshamÆlfric of Eynsham ("the
Grammarian"). This form of the language is known as the "Winchester
standard", or more commonly as Late West Saxon. It is considered to
represent the "classical" form of Old English. It retained its
position of prestige until the time of the Norman Conquest, after
which English ceased for a time to be of importance as a literary
language.

* Prehistoric
Old EnglishOld English (c. 450 to 650); for this period, Old
English is mostly a reconstructed language as no literary witnesses
survive (with the exception of limited epigraphic evidence ). This
language, or bloc of languages, spoken by the Angles, Saxons, and
Jutes, and pre-dating documented
Old EnglishOld English or Anglo-Saxon, has also
been called Primitive Old English.
* Early
Old EnglishOld English (c. 650 to 900), the period of the oldest
manuscript traditions, with authors such as
Cædmon ,
BedeBede , Cynewulf
and
Aldhelm .
* Late
Old EnglishOld English (c. 900 to 1066), the final stage of the language
leading up to the Norman conquest of
EnglandEngland and the subsequent
transition to Early
Middle English .

Old EnglishOld English should not be regarded as a single monolithic entity,
just as
Modern English is also not monolithic. It emerged over time
out of the many dialects and languages of the colonising tribes, and
it is perhaps only towards the later Anglo-Saxon period that these can
be considered to have constituted a single national language. Even
then,
Old EnglishOld English continued to exhibit much local and regional
variation, remnants of which remain in
Modern English dialects .

The four main dialectal forms of
Old EnglishOld English were Mercian ,
Northumbrian , Kentish , and West Saxon . Mercian and Northumbrian
are together referred to as _Anglian_. In terms of geography the
Northumbrian region lay north of the Humber River; the Mercian lay
north of the Thames and South of the Humber River; West Saxon lay
south and southwest of the Thames; and the smallest, Kentish region
lay southeast of the Thames, a small corner of England. The Kentish
region, settled by the
JutesJutes from Jutland, has the scantiest literary
remains.

Each of these four dialects was associated with an independent
kingdom on the island. Of these, Northumbria south of the Tyne , and
most of
MerciaMercia , were overrun by the
VikingsVikings during the 9th century.
The portion of
MerciaMercia that was successfully defended, and all of Kent
, were then integrated into Wessex under
Alfred the GreatAlfred the Great . From that
time on, the
West Saxon dialect (then in the form now known as Early
West Saxon) became standardised as the language of government, and as
the basis for the many works of literature and religious materials
produced or translated from
LatinLatin in that period.

The later literary standard known as
Late West Saxon (see History ,
above), although centred in the same region of the country, appears
not to have been directly descended from Alfred's Early West Saxon.
For example, the former diphthong /iy/ tended to become
monophthongised to /i/ in EWS, but to /y/ in LWS.

Due to the centralisation of power and the Viking invasions, there is
relatively little written record of the non-Wessex dialects after
Alfred's unification. Some Mercian texts continued to be written,
however, and the influence of Mercian is apparent in some of the
translations produced under Alfred's programme, many of which were
produced by Mercian scholars. Other dialects certainly continued to
be spoken, as is evidenced by the continued variation between their
successors in Middle and Modern English. In fact, what would become
the standard forms of
Middle English and of
Modern English are
descended from Mercian rather than West Saxon, while Scots developed
from the Northumbrian dialect. It was once claimed that, owing to its
position at the heart of the Kingdom of Wessex, the relics of
Anglo-Saxon accent, idiom and vocabulary were best preserved in the
dialect of Somerset .

The language of the Anglo-Saxon settlers appears not to have been
significantly affected by the native British
Celtic languages which it
largely displaced. The number of Celtic loanwords introduced into the
language is very small. However, various suggestions have been made
concerning possible influence that Celtic may have had on developments
in English syntax in the post-
Old EnglishOld English period, such as the regular
progressive construction and analytic word order , as well as the
eventual development of the periphrastic auxiliary verb "do."

Old EnglishOld English contained a certain number of loanwords from
LatinLatin ,
which was the scholarly and diplomatic _lingua franca _ of Western
Europe. It is sometimes possible to give approximate dates for the
borrowing of individual
LatinLatin words based on which patterns of sound
change they have undergone. Some
LatinLatin words had already been borrowed
into the
Germanic languages before the ancestral
AnglesAngles and Saxons
left continental Europe for Britain. More entered the language when
the Anglo-
Saxons were converted to Christianity and Latin-speaking
priests became influential. It was also through Irish Christian
missionaries that the
LatinLatin alphabet was introduced and adapted for
the writing of
Old EnglishOld English , replacing the earlier runic system.
Nonetheless, the largest transfer of Latin-based (mainly
Old French )
words into English occurred after the
Norman Conquest of 1066, and
thus in the
Middle English rather than the
Old EnglishOld English period.

Another source of loanwords was
Old Norse , which came into contact
with
Old EnglishOld English via the Scandinavian rulers and settlers in the
Danelaw from the late 9th century, and during the rule of
Cnut and
other Danish kings in the early 11th century. Many place-names in
eastern and northern
EnglandEngland are of Scandinavian origin. Norse
borrowings are relatively rare in
Old EnglishOld English literature, being mostly
terms relating to government and administration. The literary
standard, however, was based on the
West Saxon dialect , away from the
main area of Scandinavian influence; the impact of Norse may have been
greater in the eastern and northern dialects. Certainly in Middle
English texts, which are more often based on eastern dialects, a
strong Norse influence becomes apparent.
Modern English contains a
great many, often everyday, words that were borrowed from Old Norse,
and the grammatical simplification that occurred after the Old English
period is also often attributed to Norse influence.

The influence of
Old Norse certainly helped move English from a
synthetic language along the continuum to a more analytic word order ,
and
Old Norse most likely made a greater impact on the English
language than any other language. The eagerness of
VikingsVikings in the
Danelaw to communicate with their southern Anglo-Saxon neighbours
produced a friction that led to the erosion of the complicated
inflectional word-endings. Simeon Potter notes: “No less
far-reaching was the influence of Scandinavian upon the inflexional
endings of English in hastening that wearing away and leveling of
grammatical forms which gradually spread from north to south. It was,
after all, a salutary influence. The gain was greater than the loss.
There was a gain in directness, in clarity, and in strength.”

The strength of the Viking influence on
Old EnglishOld English appears from the
fact that the indispensable elements of the language - pronouns,
modals, comparatives, pronominal adverbs (like "hence" and
"together"), conjunctions and prepositions - show the most marked
Danish influence; the best evidence of Scandinavian influence appears
in the extensive word borrowings for, as Jespersen indicates, no texts
exist in either Scandinavia or in Northern
EnglandEngland from this time to
give certain evidence of an influence on syntax. The change to Old
English from
Old Norse was substantive, pervasive, and of a democratic
character.
Old Norse and
Old EnglishOld English resembled each other closely
like cousins and with some words in common, they roughly understood
each other; in time the inflections melted away and the analytic
pattern emerged. It is most “important to recognize that in many
words the English and Scandinavian language differed chiefly in their
inflectional elements. The body of the word was so nearly the same in
the two languages that only the endings would put obstacles in the way
of mutual understanding. In the mixed population which existed in the
Danelaw these endings must have led to much confusion, tending
gradually to become obscured and finally lost.” This blending of
peoples and languages resulted in “simplifying English grammar.”

The sounds enclosed in parentheses in the chart above are not
considered to be phonemes :

* is an allophone of /j/ occurring after /n/ and when geminated
(doubled).
* is an allophone of /n/ occurring before /k/ and /ɡ/.
* are voiced allophones of /f, θ, s/ respectively, occurring
between vowels or voiced consonants .
* are allophones of /h/ occurring in coda position after front and
back vowels respectively.
* is an allophone of /ɡ/ occurring after a vowel, and, at an
earlier stage of the language, in the syllable onset.
* the voiceless sonorants are analysed as realizing the sequences
/hw, hl, hn, hr/.

The above system is largely similar to that of
Modern English ,
except that (and for most speakers ) have generally been lost, while
the voiced affricate and fricatives (now also including /ʒ/) have
become independent phonemes, as has /ŋ/.

Vowels – monophthongs

FRONT
BACK

UNROUNDED
ROUNDED
UNROUNDED
ROUNDED

CLOSE
i iː
y yː

u uː

MID
e eː
(ø øː)

o oː

OPEN
æ æː

ɑ ɑː

The mid front rounded vowels /ø(ː)/ had merged into unrounded
/e(ː)/ before the
Late West Saxon period. During the 11th century
such vowels arose again, as monophthongisations of the diphthongs
/e(ː)o/, but quickly merged again with /e(ː)/ in most dialects.

Diphthongs
First
element Short
(monomoraic ) Long
(bimoraic)

CLOSE
iy/ie
iːy/iːe

MID
eo
eːo

OPEN
æɑ
æːɑ

The exact pronunciation of the West Saxon close diphthongs, spelt
⟨ie⟩, is disputed; it may have been /i(ː)y/ or /i(ː)e/. Other
dialects may have had different systems of diphthongs; for example,
Anglian dialects retained /i(ː)u/, which had merged with /e(ː)o/ in
West Saxon.

For more on dialectal differences, see Phonological history of Old
English (dialects) .

Some of the principal sound changes occurring in the pre-history and
history of
Old EnglishOld English were the following:

* Fronting of to except when nasalised or followed by a nasal
consonant ("Anglo-Frisian brightening"), partly reversed in certain
positions by later "a-restoration" or retraction.
* Monophthongisation of the diphthong , and modification of
remaining diphthongs to the height-harmonic type.
* Diphthongisation of long and short front vowels in certain
positions ("breaking").
* Palatalisation of velars , , , to , , , in certain front-vowel
environments.
* The process known as i-mutation (which for example led to modern
_mice_ as the plural of _mouse_).
* Loss of certain weak vowels in word-final and medial positions,
and of medial ; reduction of remaining unstressed vowels.
* Diphthongisation of certain vowels before certain consonants when
preceding a back vowel ("back mutation").
* Loss of /h/ between vowels or between a voiced consonant and a
vowel, with lengthening of the preceding vowel.
* Collapse of two consecutive vowels into a single vowel.
* "Palatal umlaut", which has given forms such as _six_ (compare
German _sechs_).

Nouns decline for 5 cases : nominative , accusative , genitive ,
dative , instrumental ; 3 genders : masculine, feminine, neuter; 2
numbers : singular, and plural; and are strong, or weak. The
instrumental is vestigial and only used with the masculine and neuter
singular and often replaced by the dative . Only pronouns and strong
adjectives retain separate instrumental forms. There is also sparse
early Northumbrian evidence of a sixth case; the locative . Adjectives
agree with nouns in case , gender , number , and strong, or weak
forms. Pronouns and sometimes participles agree in case , gender , and
number . First and second person personal-pronouns occasionally
distinguish dual-number forms. The definite article _sē_ and its
inflections serve as a definite article ("the"), a demonstrative
adjective ("that"), and demonstrative pronoun . Other demonstratives
are _þes_ ("this"), and _ġeon_ ("yon"). These words inflect for
gender , number and case . Adjectives have both strong and weak sets
of endings, weak ones being used when a definite or possessive
determiner is also present.

Verbs conjugate for 3 persons : first, second, third; 2 numbers :
singular, plural; 2 tenses : present, and past; 3 moods : indicative ,
subjunctive , and imperative ; and are strong(exhibiting ablaut) or
weak(exhibiting a dental suffix). Verbs have 2 infinitive forms: bare,
and bound; and 2 participles : present, and past. The subjunctive has
past, and present forms. Finite verbs agree with subjects in person ,
and number . The future tense , passive voice , and other aspects are
formed with compounds. Adpositions are mostly before but often after
their object. If the object of an adposition is marked in the dative
case, an adposition may conceivably be located anywhere in the
sentence.

Remnants of the
Old EnglishOld English case system in
Modern English are in the
forms of a few pronouns (such as _I/me/mine_, _she/her_,
_who/whom/whose_ ) and in the possessive ending _-'s_, which derives
from the masculine and neuter genitive ending _-es_. The modern
English plural ending _-(e)s_ derives from the
Old EnglishOld English _-as_, but
the latter applied only to "strong" masculine nouns in the nominative
and accusative cases; different plural endings were used in other
instances.
Old EnglishOld English nouns had grammatical gender , while modern
English has only natural gender.
Pronoun usage could reflect either
natural or grammatical gender when those conflicted, as in the case of
_wīf_, a neuter noun referring to a female person.

In Old English's verbal compound constructions are the beginnings of
the compound tenses of
Modern English .
Old EnglishOld English verbs include
strong verbs , which form the past tense by altering the root vowel,
and weak verbs , which use a suffix such as _-de_. As in Modern
English, and peculiar to the Germanic languages, the verbs formed two
great classes: weak (regular), and strong (irregular). Like today, Old
English had fewer strong verbs, and many of these have over time
decayed into weak forms. Then, as now, dental suffixes indicated the
past tense of the weak verbs, as in _work_ and _worked_.

SYNTAX

Old EnglishOld English syntax is similar to that of modern English . Some
differences are consequences of the greater level of nominal and
verbal inflection, allowing freer word order .

* Default word order is verb-second in main clauses , and verb-final
in subordinate clauses , being more like modern German than modern
English.
* No _do_-support in questions and negatives. Questions were usually
formed by inverting subject and finite verb , and negatives by placing
_ne_ before the finite verb, regardless what verb.
* Multiple negatives can stack up in a sentence intensifying each
other (negative concord ).
* Sentences with subordinate clauses of the type "when X, Y" (e.g.
"When I got home, I ate dinner") don't use a _wh-_type conjunction,
but rather a _th-_type correlative conjunction such as _þā_,
otherwise meaning "then" (e.g. _þā X, þā Y_ in place of "when X,
Y"). The _wh-_words are used only as interrogatives and as indefinite
pronouns .
* Similarly, _wh-_ forms were not used as relative pronouns .
Instead, the indeclinable word _þe_ is used, often preceded by (or
replaced by) the appropriate form of the article/demonstrative _se_.

Old EnglishOld English was first written in runes , using the futhorc – a rune
set derived from the Germanic 24-character elder futhark , extended by
five more runes used to represent Anglo-Saxon vowel sounds, and
sometimes by several more additional characters. From around the 9th
century, the runic system came to be supplanted by a (minuscule)
half-uncial script of the
LatinLatin alphabet introduced by Irish Christian
missionaries. This was replaced by insular script , a cursive and
pointed version of the half-uncial script. This was used until the end
of the 12th century when continental
Carolingian minuscule (also known
as _Caroline_) replaced the insular.

The
LatinLatin alphabet of the time still lacked the letters ⟨j⟩ and
⟨w⟩, and there was no ⟨v⟩ as distinct from ⟨u⟩; moreover
native
Old EnglishOld English spellings did not use ⟨k⟩, ⟨q⟩ or ⟨z⟩.
The remaining 20
LatinLatin letters were supplemented by four more: ⟨æ
⟩ (_æsc_, modern _ash_) and ⟨ð⟩ (_ðæt_, now called eth or
edh), which were modified
LatinLatin letters, and thorn ⟨þ⟩ and wynn
⟨ƿ⟩, which are borrowings from the futhorc. A few letter pairs
were used as digraphs , representing a single sound. Also used was the
Tironian note ⟨⁊⟩ (a character similar to the digit 7) for the
conjunction _and_, and a thorn with a crossbar through the ascender
for the pronoun _þæt_. Macrons over vowels were originally used not
to mark long vowels (as in modern editions), but to indicate stress,
or as abbreviations for a following _m_ or _n_.

Modern editions of
Old EnglishOld English manuscripts generally introduce some
additional conventions. The modern forms of
LatinLatin letters are used,
including ⟨g⟩ in place of the insular G , ⟨s⟩ for long S , and
others which may differ considerably from the insular script, notably
⟨e⟩, ⟨f⟩ and ⟨r⟩. Macrons are used to indicate long
vowels, where usually no distinction was made between long and short
vowels in the originals. (In some older editions an acute accent mark
was used for consistency with
Old Norse conventions.) Additionally,
modern editions often distinguish between velar and palatal ⟨c⟩
and ⟨g⟩ by placing dots above the palatals: ⟨ċ⟩, ⟨ġ⟩.
The letter wynn ⟨ƿ⟩ is usually replaced with ⟨w⟩, but _æsc_,
eth and thorn are normally retained (except when eth is replaced by
thorn).

In contrast with
Modern English orthography , that of
Old EnglishOld English was
reasonably regular , with a mostly predictable correspondence between
letters and phonemes . There were not usually any silent letters –
in the word _cniht_, for example, both the ⟨c⟩ and ⟨h⟩ were
pronounced, unlike the ⟨k⟩ and ⟨gh⟩ in the modern _knight_.
The following table lists the
Old EnglishOld English letters and digraphs
together with the phonemes they represent, using the same notation as
in the Phonology section above.

A
/ɑ/, /ɑː/
Spelling variations like ⟨land⟩ ~ ⟨lond⟩ ("land") suggest
the short vowel may have had a rounded allophone before in some
cases.

ā
/ɑː/
Used in modern editions to distinguish from short /ɑ/.

æ
/æ/, /æː/
Formerly the digraph ⟨ae⟩ was used; ⟨æ⟩ became more common
during the 8th century, and was standard after 800. In 9th-century
Kentish manuscripts, a form of ⟨æ⟩ that was missing the upper
hook of the ⟨a⟩ part was used; it is not clear whether this
represented /æ/ or /e/. See also ę.

ǣ
/æː/
Used in modern editions to distinguish from short /æ/.

B
/b/

(an allophone of /f/)
Used in this way in early texts (before 800). For example, the word
"sheaves" is spelled _scēabas_ in an early text, but later (and more
commonly) as _scēafas_.

C
/k/

/tʃ/
The /tʃ/ pronunciation is sometimes written with a diacritic by
modern editors: most commonly ⟨ċ⟩, sometimes ⟨č⟩ or
⟨ç⟩. Before a consonant letter the pronunciation is always /k/;
word-finally after ⟨i⟩ it is always /tʃ/. Otherwise, a knowledge
of the history of the word is needed to predict the pronunciation.
(For details, see
Phonological history of Old English §
Palatalization .) See also the digraphs CG, SC.

CG
(the phonetic realization of geminate /jj/)

/ɡɡ/ (occasionally)

D
/d/
In the earliest texts it also represented /θ/ (see þ).

ð
/θ/, including its allophone
Called _ðæt_ in Old English; now called eth or edh. Derived from
the insular form of ⟨d⟩ with the addition of a cross-bar. See also
þ.

E
/e/, /eː/

ę

A modern editorial substitution for the modified Kentish form of
⟨æ⟩ (see æ). Compare e caudata , ę .

G
/ɡ/, including its allophone ; or /j/, including its allophone ,
which occurs after ⟨n⟩.
In
Old EnglishOld English manuscripts, this letter usually took its insular
form ⟨ᵹ⟩ (see also: yogh ). The and pronunciations are
sometimes written ⟨ġ⟩ in modern editions. Before a consonant
letter the pronunciation is always (word-initially) or (after a
vowel). Word-finally after ⟨i⟩ it is always . Otherwise a
knowledge of the history of the word in question is needed to predict
the pronunciation. (For details, see Phonological history of Old
English § Palatalization .)

H
/h/, including its allophones
In the combinations ⟨hl⟩, ⟨hr⟩, ⟨hn⟩, ⟨hw⟩, the
realization may have been a devoiced version of the second consonant.

īE
/iːy/
Used in modern editions, to distinguish from short /iy/. Sometimes
stands for /eː/ after ⟨ċ⟩, ⟨ġ⟩ .

IO
/iu/, /iːu/
Occurs in dialects that had such diphthongs. Not present in Late
West Saxon. The long variant may be shown in modern editions as _īo_.

K
/k/
Rarely used; this sound is normally represented by ⟨c⟩.

L
/l/
Probably velarised (as in Modern English) when in coda position.

M
/m/

N
/n/, including its allophone (before /k/, /g/).

O
/o/, /oː/
See also A.

ō
/oː/
Used in modern editions, to distinguish from short /o/.

OE
/ø/, /øː/ (in dialects having that sound).

ōE
/øː/
Used in modern editions, to distinguish from short /ø/.

P
/p/

QU
/kw/
A rare spelling of /kw/, which was usually written as ⟨cƿ⟩
(⟨cw⟩ in modern editions).

R
/r/
The exact nature of
Old EnglishOld English /r/ is not known; it may have been
an alveolar approximant as in most modern English, an alveolar flap ,
or an alveolar trill .

S
/s/, including its allophone .

SC
/ʃ/ or occasionally /sk/.

T
/t/

TH
Represented /θ/ in the earliest texts (see þ).

þ
/θ/, including its allophone
Called thorn and derived from the rune of the same name . In the
earliest texts ⟨d⟩ or ⟨th⟩ was used for this phoneme, but
these were later replaced in this function by eth ⟨ð⟩ and thorn
⟨þ⟩.
EthEth was first attested (in definitely dated materials) in
the 7th century, and thorn in the 8th.
EthEth was more common than thorn
before Alfred 's time. From then onward, thorn was used increasingly
often at the start of words, while eth was normal in the middle and at
the end of words, although usage varied in both cases. Some modern
editions use only thorn. See also
Pronunciation of English ⟨th⟩ .

U
/u/, /uː/. Also sometimes /w/ (see ƿ, below).

UU
Sometimes used for /w/ (see ƿ, below).

ū
Used for /uː/ in modern editions, to distinguish from short /u/.

W
/w/
A modern substitution for ⟨ƿ⟩.

ƿ
/w/
Called wynn and derived from the rune of the same name. In earlier
texts by continental scribes, and also later in the north, /w/ was
represented by ⟨u⟩ or ⟨uu⟩. In modern editions, wynn is
replaced by ⟨w⟩, to prevent confusion with ⟨p⟩.

The first page of the
BeowulfBeowulf manuscript with its opening
Hƿæt ƿē Gārde/na ingēar dagum þēod cyninga / þrym ge
frunon...
"Listen! We of the Spear-Danes from days of yore have heard of the
glory of the folk-kings..." Main article:
Old English literature

Old EnglishOld English literature, though more abundant than literature of the
continent before AD 1000, is nonetheless scant. The pagan and
Christian streams mingle in Old English, one of the richest and most
significant bodies of literature preserved among the early Germanic
peoples. In his supplementary article to the 1935 posthumous edition
of Bright's _Anglo-Saxon Reader_, Dr. James Hulbert writes:

In such historical conditions, an incalculable amount of the writings
of the Anglo-Saxon period perished. What they contained, how important
they were for an understanding of literature before the Conquest, we
have no means of knowing: the scant catalogues of monastic libraries
do not help us, and there are no references in extant works to other
compositions....How incomplete our materials are can be illustrated by
the well-known fact that, with few and relatively unimportant
exceptions, all extant Anglo-Saxon poetry is preserved in four
manuscripts.

Some of the most important surviving works of
Old EnglishOld English literature
are _
BeowulfBeowulf _, an epic poem ; the _
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle _, a record
of early English history; the
Franks Casket , an inscribed early
whalebone artefact; and Cædmon\'s Hymn , a Christian religious poem.
There are also a number of extant prose works, such as sermons and
saints' lives, biblical translations, and translated
LatinLatin works of
the early Church Fathers, legal documents, such as laws and wills, and
practical works on grammar, medicine, and geography. Still, poetry is
considered the heart of
Old EnglishOld English literature. Nearly all Anglo-Saxon
authors are anonymous, with a few exceptions, such as
BedeBede and Cædmon
. Cædmon, the earliest English poet we know by name, served as a lay
brother in the monastery at Whitby.

_BEOWULF_

The first example is taken from the opening lines of the folk-epic
_
BeowulfBeowulf _, a poem of some 3,000 lines and the single greatest work of
Old English. This passage describes how
Hrothgar 's legendary
ancestor
Scyld was found as a baby, washed ashore, and adopted by a
noble family. The translation is literal and represents the original
poetic word order. As such, it is not typical of
Old EnglishOld English prose.
The modern cognates of original words have been used whenever
practical to give a close approximation of the feel of the original
poem.

The words in brackets are implied in the
Old EnglishOld English by noun case and
the bold words in brackets are explanations of words that have
slightly different meanings in a modern context. Notice how _what_ is
used by the poet where a word like _lo_ or _behold_ would be expected.
This usage is similar to _what-ho!_, both an expression of surprise
and a call to attention.

English poetry is based on stress and alliteration. In alliteration,
the first consonant in a word alliterates with the same consonant at
the beginning of another word, as with _Gār-Dena_ and _ġeār-dagum_.
Vowels alliterate with any other vowel, as with _æþelingas_ and
_Ellen_. In the text below, the letters that alliterate are bolded.

Lo! We have heard of majesty of the Spear-Danes, of those
nation-kings in the days of yore, and how those noblemen promoted
zeal.
Scyld Scefing took away mead-benches from bands of enemies, from
many tribes; he terrified earls. Since he was first found destitute
(he gained consolation for that) he grew under the heavens, prospered
in honours, until each of those who lived around him over the sea had
to obey him, give him tribute. That was a good king!

THE LORD\'S PRAYER

A recording of how the
Lord's Prayer probably sounded in Old
English, pronounced slowly

This text of the Lord\'s Prayer is presented in the standardised West
Saxon literary dialect, with added macrons for vowel length, markings
for probable palatalised consonants, modern punctuation, and the
replacement of the letter wynn with w.

And ne ġelǣd þū ūs on costnunge, ac ālȳs ūs of yfele.
/ɑnd ne je.læːd θuː uːs on kost.ˈnuŋ.ɡe ɑk ɑː.ˈlyːs
uːs of y.ˈve.le/
And do not lead thou us into temptation, but alese
(RELEASE/DELIVER) us of (FROM) evil.

Sōþlīċe.
/ˈsoːð.liː.t͡ʃe/
Soothly (TRULY).

CHARTER OF CNUT

This is a proclamation from King
Cnut the Great to his earl Thorkell
the Tall and the English people written in AD 1020. Unlike the
previous two examples, this text is prose rather than poetry. For ease
of reading, the passage has been divided into sentences while the
pilcrows represent the original division.

ORIGINAL
TRANSLATION

¶
Cnut cyning gret his arcebiscopas and his leod-biscopas and
Þurcyl eorl and ealle his eorlas and ealne his þeodscype, twelfhynde
and twyhynde, gehadode and læwede, on Englalande freondlice.
¶ Cnut, king, greets his archbishops and his
lede'(PEOPLE\'S)\'-bishops and Thorkell, earl, and all his earls and
all his _PEOPLE_ship, _GREATER_ (HAVING A 1200 SHILLING WEREGILD ) and
_LESSER_ (200 SHILLING WEREGILD), hooded(ORDAINED TO PRIESTHOOD) and
lewd(LAY), in
EnglandEngland friendly.

And ic cyðe eow, þæt ic wylle beon hold hlaford and unswicende
to godes gerihtum and to rihtre woroldlage.
And I kithe(MAKE KNOWN/COUTH TO) you, that I will be
hold(CIVILISED) lord and unswiking(UNCHEATING) to God's rights(LAWS)
and to rights(LAWS) worldly.

Like other historical languages,
Old EnglishOld English has been used by
scholars and enthusiasts of later periods to create texts either
imitating Anglo-Saxon literature or deliberately transferring it to a
different cultural context. Examples include Alistair Campbell and J.
R. R. Tolkien . A number of websites devoted to
Modern Paganism and
historical reenactment offer reference material and forums promoting
the active use of Old English. There is also an
Old EnglishOld English version of
Wikipedia. However, one investigation found that many Neo-Old English
texts published online bear little resemblance to the historical
language and have many basic grammatical mistakes.

Retrieved from
"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Old_English additional
terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and
Privacy Policy .® is a registered trademark of the
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. , a non-profit organization.